Cuzzin Ricky and I took off on Thursday to see some of the action of Indiana's Sprint Car Week. We caught the opener at Kokomo, but were planning on missing Gas City, Lawrenceburg and Terre Haute. We headed south figuring to hit Putnamville, Bloomington and Haubstadt, three tracks we'd never been to before. Come to find out the Terre Haute show was a rain out that was rescheduled for Sunday night. Since we had to drive right by it to get home, we stayed an extra day and picked that one up as well. Four nights of sprint car racing in a row and five out of seven on the week! It's good to be retired, I'm telling you.
We stopped at The Big Peach after leaving Haubstadt and picked up some produce - melons, tomatoes and sweet corn. I was more interested in the old Dodge farm truck than the melons (insert your own joke here). I looked through the window and the interior was in fairly good shape. Looks like the chickens might have roosted in it for a while judging by the deposits on the seat but nothing that couldn't have been cleaned up and made serviceable. The body also is in pretty good shape. There's a bit of rust here and there but it's much more solid than the VW was when I started on it. I'm assuming it's a four speed, I didn't see a shift pattern plate but it does have a two-speed axle. You'd have to put new rubber on it all away around. The one front tire was a Ward's Riverside - been a long time since Montgomery Ward sold tires.
The front rims were of the old split rim type as well. The kind that would come flying off and decapitate you if they didn't seat properly when changing them. I changed a few of those when I worked for the paving outfit long ago. We didn't have a cage so we put a couple of chains around the rims to keep the split rings from flying off, leaned the tires up against the wall with the split ring facing inward, locked on the tire chuck and then went outside for a few minutes while the tire inflated. Back then everyone had some kind of story of a guy getting killed or maimed by one of those things. New rims would definitely be in order. I need to finish up several projects before I drag another project home but this one is exactly like what I'm looking for.
They had a carnival going at Terre Haute right next to the track. So I finished off the trip by walking over to the carnival and getting myself a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich. One of those where the bun is about four inches in diameter but the tenderloin is about twice that. I'm still mostly vegan but since the breaded tenderloin is the State Sandwich, I figured I needed one.
We had a great time. The racing was good, met some nice people, saw some interesting machinery, and enjoyed just getting out and seeing the beautiful Indiana countryside. We've got a heat wave on tap for the latter part of the week. I'll have to plan my work sessions and bike rides carefully but I'll be back on the projects.
2 comments:
There's a country singer called Cole Swindell. He's playing at the fair. Every time I see the billboard or hear a radio commercial all I can think about is Sammy Swindell. Last time I saw Sammy it was so hot that your beer was warm before you got back to your seat in the stands.
We didn't see Sammy Swindell but they did have Sheldon Kinser's sprint car on display and as the pace car for the feature at Bloomington along with a brief memorial ceremony. I only had one beer the whole time I was gone but it was ice cold and a bargain - $3.00 for a tall boy.
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